It's not you. It's chemicals.

Brainard Lake Area, Colorado

As I hope I've made clear, I intellectually recognize that everything is just matter and energy. We don't know how matter and energy create conscious, subjective experience, but we can know, as much as we know anything, that consciousness is an emergent property of our brain. (That is, we can manipulate consciousness by manipulating the brain - nothing mysterious required.)

However, knowing something and fully internalizing it are two different things.

When I was writing my latest book, Losing My Religions, in May 2022, I marveled that I was sleeping well with hardly any external help (e.g., medicines): 

As you would expect, I didn’t sleep at all [on the plane to Germany]. I have never slept on a plane, regardless of what I drink, what drugs I take, or how tired I am. (Not even earlier this month, with my overall sleep the best it has ever been. Lately, I’ve hardly taken any sleep meds at all!)

I attributed this to my life being better, including my mindfulness practice.

Ha-ha!

It turns out my improved sleep was dependent on the very high dose of nerve medicine I was taking for my spinal injury. (I was at the maximum dose for well over a year following the accident.) But as I started to wean myself off the drug (a process that is still ongoing) my sleep reverted back to its previous pattern, despite the antidepressant, meditation, and relative calm of my life. (And every sleep tip out there.)

This is simply another example showing that I am just a bag of chemicals. Yes, it feels like there is a "me" (self) in control. But everything is just chemical reactions, back and forth. (Unless it is all just a simulation.)

When I am able to stop my mind-churning and recognize this, it is quite enlightening. I hope it can be for you, too!